To give thee, from our royal mafter, thanks;
Only to herald thee into his fight,

Not pay thee.

Roffe. And, for an earneft of a greater honour,

He bade me, from him, call thee Thane of Cawdor: In which addition, hail, moft worthy Thane!

For it is thine.

Ban. What, can the devil speak true?

Macb. The Thane of Cawdor lives; Why do you drefs me

In borrow'd robes?

Ang. Who was the Thane, lives yet; But under heavy judgment bears that life, Which he deferves to lofe. Whether he was Combin'd with Norway; or did line the rebel With hidden help and vantage; or that with both He labour'd in his country's wreck, I know not; But treasons capital, confefs'd, and prov'd, Have overthrown him.

Mach. Glamis, and Thane of Cawdor:

The greateft is behind.-Thanks for your pains. Do you not hope, your children fhall be Kings? When thofe that gave the Thane of Cawdor to me, Promis'd no lefs to them?

2

Ban. That, trufted home',

Might yet enkindle you unto the crown,

Befides the Thane of Cawdor. But 'tis ftrange:

And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,
The inftruments of darkness tell us truths,
Win us with honeft trifles, to betray us

In deepest confequence.

Enkindle, for to ftimulate you to feek. WARBURTON.

Coufins,

Coufins, a word, I pray you.

Mach. Two truths are told,

As happy prologues to the 3 fwelling act

Of the imperial theme.-I thank you, gentlemen.* This fupernatural folliciting

Cannot be ill; cannot be good. If ill,
Why hath it given me earnest of fuccefs,
Commencing in a truth? I am Thane of Cawdor.
If good, why do I yield to that suggestion,
Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair,
And make my feated heart knock at my ribs,
Against the use of nature? Present fears"

3-fwelling a] Swelling is used in the fame fenfe in the Prologue to Hen. V.

"princes to act

"And monarchs behold the swelling scene." STEEVENS. 4 This fupernatural folliciting]

Solliciting, for information. WARBURTON.

Solliciting is rather, in my opinion, incitement than information. JOHNSON.

Yield, not for confent, but for to be fubdued by. WARBURTON. To yield is, fimply, to give way to. JOHNSON.

6

Prefent fears

Are less than herrible imaginings :]

Macbeth, while he is projecting the murder, is thrown into the most agonizing affright at the prospect of it: which foon recovering from, thus he reafons on the nature of his diforder. But imaginings are fo far from being more or less than prefent fears, that they are the fame things under different words. Shakefpeare certainly wrote,

-prefent feats

Are lefs than borrible imaginings:

i. e. when I come to execute this murder, I shall find it much lefs dreadful than my frighted imagination now prefents it to me. A confideration drawn from the nature of the imagination.

WARBURTON.

Prefent fears are fears of things prefent, which Macbeth declares, and every man has found, to be less than the imagination presents them while the objects are yet diftant. Fears is right. JOHNSON.

I

Are

Are less than horrible imaginings:

7

My thought, whofe murther yet is but fantastical,
Shakes fo my single state of man, that function
Is fmother'd in furmife; and nothing is,

But what is not.

Ban. Look, how our partner's rapt!

Macb. If chance will have me King, why, chance may crown me,

Without my ftir,

Ban. New honours, come upon him,

Like our strange garments, cleave not to their mould But with the aid of use.

Macb. Come what come may,

• Time and the hour runs through the rougheft day.

man]

Ban.

1 - fingle flate of man — The fingle fate of man feems to be used by Shakespeare for an individual, in oppofition to a commonwealth, or conjunct body.

-function

Is fmother'd in furmife; and nothing is,
But what is not.]

JOHNSON

All powers of action are oppreffed and crushed by one overwhelm ing image in the mind, and nothing is prefent to me, but that which is really future. Of things now about me I have no perception, being intent wholly on that which has yet no existence. JOHNSON.

• Time and the hour runs thro' the roughest day.] I fuppofe every reader is difgufted at the tautology in this paffage, Time and the hour, and will therefore willingly believe that Shakespeare wrote it thus,

Come what come may,

Time! on!-the hour runs thro' the roughest day. Macbeth is deliberating upon the events which are to befal him, but finding no fatisfaction from his own thoughts, he grows impatient of reflection, and refolves to wait the close without harraffing himself with conjectures.

Come what come may.

But to fhorten the pain of fufpenfe, he calls upon Time in the ufual ftile of ardent defire, to quicken his motion,

Ban. Worthy Macbeth, we ftay upon your leisure: Mach. Give me your favour :- My dull brain was wrought

With things forgotten. Kind gentlemen, your pains Are regiftred where every day I turn

The leaf to read them.-Let us toward the King.Think, upon what hath chanc'd; and, at more time, The interim having weigh'd it, let us speak

Our free hearts each to other.

Ban. Very gladly.

Macb. 'Till then, enough.-Come, friends,

Flourish. Enter King, Malcolm, Donalbain, Lenox, and Attendants.

King. Is execution done on Cawdor? Are not Thofe in commiffion yet return'd?

Time! on!

He then comforts himself with the reflection that all his perplexity must have an end,

the hour runs thro' the roughest day:

This conjecture is fupported by the paffage in the letter to his lady, in which he fays, they referred me to the coming on of time, with Hail, King that fhalt be. JOHNSON.

By this, I confess I do not with his two laft commentators imagine is meant either the tautology of time and the hour, or an allufion to time painted with an hour-glafs, or an exhortation to time to haften forward, but rather to fay tempus & hora, time and occafion, will carry the thing through, and bring it to fome determined point and end, let its nature be what it will.

This note is taken from an Effay on the Writings and Genius of Shakefpeare, &c. STEEVENS.

Time and the hour

Time is painted with an hour-glafs in his hand. This occafioned the expreflion. WARBURTON.

My head was worked, agitated, put into commotion. JosяNSON.

Mal.

Mal. My liege,

They are not yet come back. But I have spoke
With one that faw him die: who did report,
That very frankly he confefs'd his treafons;
Implor'd your highness' pardon; and set forth
A deep repentance: nothing in his life
Became him, like the leaving it: Hedy'd,
As one, that had been 3 ftudied in his death,
To throw away the dearest thing he ow'd,
As 'twere a careless trifle.

King. There's no art,

To find the mind's conftruction in the face :
He was a gentleman, on whom I built
An abfolute truft.

Enter Macbeth, Banquo, Roffe, and Angus.

The behaviour of the Thane of Cawdor correfponds in almoft every circumstance with that of the unfortunate earl of Effex, as related by Stowe, p. 793. His afking the queen's forgiveness, his confeffion, repentance, and concern about behaving with propriety on the fcaffold, are minutely defcribed by that hiftorian. Such an allufion could not fail of having the defired effect on an audience, many of whom were eye witne fles to the feverity of that juftice which deprived the age of one of its greateft ornaments, and Southampton, Shakespeare's patron, of his deareft friend. STEEVENS.

3 ftudied in his death,]

Inftructed in the art of dying. It was ufual to fay fludied, for learned in fcience. JOHNSON.

4 To find the mind's conftruction in the face:]

The conftruction of the mind is, I believe, a phrafe peculiar to Shakespeare; it implies the frame or difpofition of the mind, by which it is determined to good or ill. JOHNSON.

VOL. IV.

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